Heating-cooling systems, such as heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems often include a furnace and heat exchanger to heat the air circulated by the system. As air flows through the system, condensation can form. Water condensate can potentially cause the malfunction of, or damage to, components of the system, and therefore it is desirable to remove condensate from the system. Typically, a condensate box and trap are provided to facilitate the draining of condensation fluids from furnace components through which products of combustion are exhausted from the furnace, such as header boxes and exhaust vents.
In some systems, an increase in furnace vent lengths means the trap has to operate under conditions where the atmospheric pressure on the trap undergoes large changes when a furnace transitions between a neutral or “off” state to an operating or “on” state. Additionally, some furnace condensate traps designs can have two or more input connection points and can have a large internal volume. Such design features tend to increase the minimum size of the trap, which in turn, undesirably reduces installation flexibility.